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Just the Way You Are


Barbara Freethy - 2000
    a life about to be tested by the return of the only woman who can break them up—Alli's sister, Tessa.A baby brought them together—and even though Alli has always loved her strong, sexy husband Sam and the life they've built together, she has decided to set him free to follow his youthful dreams. It is no longer enough for her to be wife and lover when she knows she holds so little of his heart.Sam has always dreamed of a life away from the close-knit world of Tucker's Landing, but marriage and fatherhood ended all that. Now Sam is torn between what was and what was meant to be. He must decide if it's time to rekindle the dreams of the past ... or accept Alli, and her love, just the way she is.JUST THE WAY YOU ARE is an emotionallly compelling, heartwarming, beautiful love story about choices, second chances, the crush of a youthful love, the intensity of a love born from marriage and life. "An exceptional novel from #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Barbara Freethy!"

The Country Practice


Meredith Appleyard - 2015
    Newly single, she's returned to Australia to follow her dream of working as a GP. And her first stop is a month-long locum in the colourful community of Magpie Creek.It's been months since the town has had a doctor and Meghan is generating more than her fair share of attention, especially from forthright farmer Sean Ashby. A handsome man with a difficult past, Sean isn't shy about making his intentions known to the redheaded medico.Against her better judgement, Meghan finds herself charmed by the enigmatic Sean. But time is against her and when love threatens to derail her career plans, she is forced to reassess her priorities in ways she never imagined. Is Meghan ready to fall for all that life in Magpie Creek has to offer?Set in vibrant small-town Australia, this heart-warming contemporary rural romance heralds an exciting new voice in Australian fiction.

Just an Ordinary Family


Fiona Lowe - 2020
    And now she faces an uncomfortable truth. She wants her twin sister Libby's enviable life.Libby's closest friend Jess Dekic has been around the Hunter family for so long she might as well be blood. She's always considered herself a sister closer to Libby than Alice ever could be...Libby Hunter has all of life's boxes ticked: prominent small-town doctor, gorgeous husband and two young daughters. But when she is betrayed by those she loves most, it reveals how tenuous her world is...For Karen Hunter, her children are a double-edged sword of pain and pride. She's always tried to guide her girls through life's pitfalls, but how do you protect your children when they're adults?As the family implodes, the fallout for these four women will be inescapable...Bestselling Australian author Fiona Lowe wields a deft hand, creating utterly addictive storytelling that will have you questioning your own perceptions of what family is.

Maggie's Turn


Deanna Lynn Sletten - 2013
    For the first time in years, Maggie contemplates what she wants from life and soon realizes that her deteriorating marriage can no longer continue as it is. Can she and Andrew repair their broken relationship, or is their marriage over?Left to his own devices, Andrew is forced to take over the household responsibilities and bridge the growing divide between himself and his children. Slowly, he begins to understand what drove Maggie away—and how he can’t bear to live without her. But is it too late? Will Andrew lose Maggie forever?

Close to Home


Pamela Cook - 2015
    Not that she minds - she has her work as a vet and most days that's enough. Most days. But when she's sent to a small town on the New South Wales coast to investigate a possible outbreak of the deadly Hendra virus, Charlie finds herself torn between the haunting memories of her past, her dedication to the job and her attraction to a handsome local.Travelling to Naringup means coming face to face with what is left of her dysfunctional family - her cousin Emma, who begged Charlie not to leave all those years ago, and her aunt Hazel, who let her go without a backwards glance. But it also means relying on the kindness of strangers and, when she meets local park ranger Joel Drummond, opening her heart to the possibility of something more . . .As tensions in the country town rise, can Charlie reconcile with the past and find herself a new future in the town she left so long ago?

The Saddler Boys


Fiona Palmer - 2015
    She has a handsome boyfriend and a family who give her only the best. But she craves her own space, and her own classroom, before settling down into the life she is expected to lead. When Nat takes up a posting at a tiny school in remote Western Australia, it proves quite the culture shock, but she is soon welcomed by the swarm of inquisitive locals, particularly young student Billy and his intriguing single father, Drew.  As Nat's school comes under threat of closure, and Billy's estranged mother turns up out of the blue, Nat finds herself fighting for the township and battling with her heart. Torn between her life in Perth and the new community that needs her, Nat must risk losing it all to find out what she's really made of – and where she truly belongs.  PRAISE FOR FIONA PALMER 'Fiona Palmer just keeps getting better.' Rachael Johns 'Palmer's passion for the land bleeds into the story, and her scenes are vivid and genuine, just as her characters are.' Book'd Out'Fiona Palmer has well and truly earned her place as a leading writer of one of Australia's much-loved genres.' Countryman

Close to Home


Janet Gover - 2021
    She's rarely left its comforting embrace. She knows everyone in it; in fact, she's related to most of them. All she wants is to keep her family safe and the town running exactly the way it always has. Her way. But when an exotic French artist comes to town, her hold begins to weaken...Lucienne Chevalier, once the toast of Europe, has come to Nyringa after a tragic loss to hang up her sequins and create a place for her circus family to rest between tours. With her is Simon, her grandson, recovering from an injury so damaging he can no longer perform. Lucienne fears he'll never embrace a new future. That is, until she notices the chemistry between him and the new schoolteacher... All they need is a push.Both grande dames think they know what's best, but with equal amounts of stubbornness on both sides, peace looks unlikely. Then a relationship between Alice's rebellious great-niece and a teenage acrobat sets the two communities on a collision course. But when the bakery starts making patisseries over lamingtons, the battle lines are truly drawn...A story of community and family. Of the love that brings them together ... and the fears that would tear them apart.

The Model Wife


Tricia Stringer - 2019
    Some might say too full. With her teaching job, a farm to run, three grown daughters who have not quite got a handle on things, a reserved husband and a demanding mother-in-law, most days she is too busy to think about whether she is happy. But her life has meaning, doesn't it? After all, she is the one person everyone depends upon.But when an odd gift from her mother-in-law - an old book in the form of stern and outdated advice for young wives - surfaces again, it brings with it memories she thought she had buried deep. Has this insidious little book exerted some kind of hold over her? Could it be that in her attempts to be a loving wife and mother, she no longer knows who she is?On a day when it seems everyone is taking her for granted, and as the ghost of a past betrayal rises, it becomes clear that even this good mother and model wife can be pushed too far ...'A delightful, wise and heartwarming novel about second chances that celebrates friendships old and new.' Rachael Johns, author.

Beside Herself


Elizabeth LaBan - 2019
    Isn’t that what happens after an affair? But she’s seen friends divorce, and it’s not pretty. Plus, she and Joel have kids and an otherwise-happy life, and she still loves him, although begrudgingly.Furious and feeling stuck, she suggests having her own affair to even the score. Joel, desperate for forgiveness, agrees. But does she really want to go through with it? And how exactly does a married mother of two get back in the dating pool? Many awkward dates follow until she finds a deep and unexpected connection where she was least looking for it.Just as she thinks she’s made a decision, her journey to happiness is waylaid by storms of doubt. But the important thing is that she’s finally figuring out what she truly wants for herself, and she understands that whatever choice she makes must be hers and hers alone.

Entice


S. Layne - 2015
    When the most difficult decision of Laurie Baker’s life needed to be made, she took off for a weekend alone to weigh her pros and cons and consider all her options.What she didn’t expect was to run face first into one more complication her life didn’t need.Distracting, sexy, and British, Liam Parker offered Laurie exactly what she needed when she was desperate for attention.One night of pleasure.She wanted it.She craved it.She took it.And when the sunlight dawned and the lusty haze of one night of passion disappeared and reality revealed itself…Laurie returned home knowing that everything she had once believed, everything she had once loved and desired, was about to be tossed upside down and shaken in a way she could never imagine.

The Railwayman's Wife


Ashley Hay - 2013
    But in Thirroul, in 1948, she’s not the only person trying to chase dreams through books. There’s Roy McKinnon, who found poetry in the mess of war, but who has now lost his words and his hope. There’s Frank Draper, trapped by the guilt of those his medical treatment and care failed on their first day of freedom. All three struggle to find their own peace, and their own new story.But along with the firming of this triangle of friendship and a sense of lives inching towards renewal come other extremities—and misunderstandings. In the end, love and freedom can have unexpected ways of expressing themselves.The Railwayman’s Wife explores the power of beginnings and endings, and how hard it can sometimes be to tell them apart. Most of all, it celebrates love in all its forms, and the beauty of discovering that loving someone can be as extraordinary as being loved yourself.

The Younger Wife


Sally HepworthSally Hepworth
    But first he must divorce his current wife, even though she can no longer speak for herself.THE DAUGHTERSTully and Rachel Aston look upon their father’s fiancée, Heather, as nothing but an interloper. Heather is younger than both of them. Clearly, she’s after their father’s money.THE FORMER WIFEWith their mother in a precarious position, Tully and Rachel are determined to get to the truth about their family’s secrets, the new wife closing in, and who their father really is.THE YOUNGER WIFEHeather has secrets of her own. Will getting to the truth unleash the most dangerous impulses in all of them?

Starting from Scratch


Penelope Janu - 2021
    Her wit is as sharp as a knife. She is one of my absolute must-read authors.' Victoria Purman, bestselling Australian author After a troubled childhood and the loss of her beloved grandmother, Sapphie Brown finally finds somewhere to call home - the close-knit rural community of Horseshoe Hill.The locals love Sapphie because she never gives up - as chair of the environment committee, with the children in her classes, the troubled teens at the youth centre, the ex-racehorses she cares for and even the neglected farmhouse and gardens she wants make her own. Sapphie gives second chances to everything and everyone. Except Matts Laaksonen.An impossibly attractive environmental engineer who travels the world, Matts was Sapphie's closest childhood friend. He came to deliver a warning - now he doesn't want to leave.All Sapphie wants to do is forget their painful past, but thrown together they discover an attraction that challenges what they thought they knew about each other. Do they have a chance to recapture what they lost so long ago? Or will long-buried secrets tear them apart?In the flowers she creates from paper and the beauty that grows on the land, Sapphie has found perfect imperfection. Could that be what love is like too?MORE PRAISE'Intriguing characters and a colourful setting: if you like romance and a little mystery, get ready to enjoy this novel.' Tricia Stringer

Two Steps Forward


Graeme Simsion - 2017
    It changes everyone…”The Chemin, also known as the Camino de Santiago, is a centuries-old pilgrim route that ends in Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Every year, thousands of walkers—some devout, many not—follow the route that wends through quaint small villages and along busy highways alike, a journey unlike any other.Zoe, an artist from California who’s still reeling from her husband’s sudden death, has impulsively decided to walk the Camino, hoping to find solace and direction. Martin, an engineer from England, is road-testing a cart of his own design…and recovering from a messy divorce. They begin in the same French town, each uncertain of what the future holds. Zoe has anticipated the physical difficulties of her trek, but she is less prepared for other challenges, as strangers and circumstances force her to confront not just recent loss, but long-held beliefs. For Martin, the pilgrimage is a test of his skills and endurance but also, as he and Zoe grow closer, of his willingness to trust others—and himself—again.Smart and funny, insightful and romantic, Two Steps Forward reveals that the most important journeys we make aren’t measured in miles, but in the strength, wisdom, and love found along the way. Fans of The Rosie Project will recognize Graeme Simsion’s uniquely quirky and charming writing style.

Nineteen Letters


Jodi Perry - 2017
    There’s something about that number; it not only brought us together, bonding us forever, it also played a hand in tearing us apart.The nineteenth of January 1996. I’ll never forget it. It was the day we met. I was seven and she was six. It was the day she moved in next door, and the day I developed my first crush on a girl.Exactly nineteen years later, all my dreams came true when she became my wife. She was the love of my life. My soul mate. My everything. The reason I looked forward to waking up every morning.Then tragedy struck. Nineteen days after we married, she was in an accident that would change our lives forever. When she woke from her coma, she had no memory of me, of us, of the love we shared.I was crushed. She was my air, and without her I couldn’t breathe.The sparkle that once glistened her eyes when she looked at me was gone. To her, now, I was a stranger. I had not only lost my wife, I had lost my best friend.But I refused to let this tragedy be the end of us. That’s when I started to write her letters, stories of our life. Of when we met. About the happier times, and everything we had experienced together.What we had was far too beautiful to be forgotten.